


Bridges and Cliffs

by SLq



Series: Sakura and Skin [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV), X -エックス- | X/1999
Genre: AU, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, will and hannibal survive the fall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 05:04:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6642391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLq/pseuds/SLq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Months after their supposed deaths, Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter walk the busy streets of Tokyo City as free men. An impromptu date at an ice-cream parlor leads to a meeting with two strangers who appear to share a past disturbingly similar to Will and Hannibal's own. Serial killer tendencies included.<br/>Will is not happy about his boyfriend sharing notes with a foreign assassin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bridges and Cliffs

**Author's Note:**

> Knowledge of X/1999 and its characters is not necessary to enjoy this story. But if you like HANNIBAL, you will probably like X. Just saying :)

They wind up in Tokyo.

Not right away, of course. There had been a lot of time spent on Will's boat, secluded beaches - small oases of healing. Once Hannibal was well enough to mind the squalor (his word, not Will's), they had made their way to more civilized places. Islands, small countries with even scanter populations. The longest they had stayed in any one place was the three months they spent in Havana. Lovely time, filled with sunlight and lazy days by the sea and Hannibal in actual shorts.

Needless to say, Havana will forever hold a special place in Will's heart.

The decision to cross the ocean had been rather spur of the moment. The "spur" in question being mug shots of badly bruised Hannibal and Will flooding local media networks. Apparently, Jack Crawford could indeed do his job without Will around. It had taken him seven months to realize that no bodies and a missing boat might equal two escaped murderers, but still.

They had packed the very night newspapers started circulating the story, driven to the airport in a rented car, and found the first open flight. The booking agent seemed a bit wary, kept shooting them looks that had Will wanting to put his hands around the man's thin neck and squeeze. Things smoothed out rather quickly once Hannibal handed over an American Express Centurion credit card and requested two first-class tickets. Will could not remember being treated more politely in his entire life.

The flight itself was a nightmare of nerves. The seats were lovely. The crew was even nicer, and Will was solely tempted to drink himself into calm every time a stewardess came by to ask if he wanted something. Which was quite often. Will would squeeze Hannibal's hand where it lay clasped in his and refuse. He had to remain sharp.

Passing security at Narita Airport was surprisingly easy. Having spent fourteen hours obsessing over every little thing that could go wrong, Will was slightly miffed. In a good way, but still. Hannibal took care of their luggage, made several calls - all conducted in Japanese - and suddenly, they had a car and a place to stay.

"Just for this week, until we can secure a better location," Hannibal had told Will as they waited for their rental to arrive.

Will, wide-eyed and sleep-deprived and still high on nerves and a sort of mad glee, had grabbed Hannibal by the back of the head and kissed him breathless.

Will looks up, to a sky so bright with light it seems gold rather than blue. Almost a month had passed since that frantic day and Will was slowly getting used to life in Tokyo. Strangely, the great crowds of people out and about at all times of day and night do not bother Will. Perhaps it is the language barrier, isolating him from strangers more securely than all the physical distance he had put between himself and others in the States. The feeling of being lost at sea as he squeezes through streets teeming with life is also one he welcomes. No one can find them here - two of thirteen million people in a city of glass towers and train rails and lights.     

Will squeezes Hannibal's hand. Hannibal squeezes back and turns to smile down at him with a soft, open delight.

"We are here."

Will blinks at Hannibal, then at the building behind him. SOWA stands in big, white letters atop a colorful storefront. A large, plastic ice cream cone blinks merrily on the sidewalk beside it.

"You took me to an ice cream parlor?"

Hannibal's eyes curve with his smile. "You said you wanted something cold."

Will rises an eyebrow. "It's like eighty degrees, of course I want something cold. I was thinking more along the lines of a beer, though."

"We do not have to go in."

Will glances at the pictures of tall, curving scoops of ice cream tacked to the front window. Then he looks at Hannibal's carefully polite expression. "Nothing fruity," he warns.

"Perhaps you will enjoy the more traditional flavors. This store specializes in them," Hannibal says as he escorts Will through the glass door.

"You researched it." Will does not bother to hide his pleased smile. "Are we on a date, Doctor Lecter?"

Hannibal smiles and says nothing.

There is a line at the register. Will's feet feel faintly swollen, both from the humid heat and their impromptu five-hour tour of Shibuya. "Choose something for me," he tells Hannibal - who immediately puffs up in pleasure at being able to provide for Will and really, Will is going to stop exploiting this particular aspect of his personality at some point, he promises - and finds an unoccupied table toward the back of the store.

The front door jingles open almost as soon as Will takes a seat. His eyes snap up at the sound, an instinctual response after such a long time on the run. Two men stand there; one in an expensive dark suit, the other looking as if he had grabbed whatever was closest when he rolled out of bed. Will looks them over with a profiler's eyes and finds no threat to himself or Hannibal.

He does, however, see a whole lot of blood.

It drips from the men's bodies, pools in their shadows and weaves strings of red around their necks, their hands. The man in the dark suit wears it like a mantle, proud and glorious. His companion shudders beneath its weight.

Will is on his feet before he knows it.

Green eyes snap up from where they had been morosely tracing tiles on the floor. Will sees demons howl behind them - literal, not the mad actions of terrible people.

When Will looks at the man in black, he sees a gaping grave.

The green-eyed man turns to his companion. Will's Japanese is terrible and the man is too far away, but he manages to read "wait," and "ice cream" from the man's lips. The dark-suited man nods and assumes an expression Will had seen only on one other person, a smile offered while Will sat in a jail cell and tried to make sense of his broken life.

The dark-suited man steps in line at the register, directly behind Hannibal. Their shadows overlap.

"Hello."

Will hastily looks away. His eyes narrow as they fall on the green-eyed man, now standing just a few steps away. "Do you need help?" he blurts out.

The man's eyes widen ever so slightly. Then he smiles, and Will's heart breaks just a bit.

"It is too late for that, I fear."

Will considers the stranger. Delicate beauty, almost too much for a man but lined with enough hard angles and muscles to come off lithe rather than feminine. He does not slouch, although something in his manner leads Will to think he might have had he been here on his own. His eyes skirt over Will's like he wants to peer inside, but cannot quite make himself do so.

Will makes a decision and extends his hand.

"Will Graham."

The man reaches forward hesitantly. He is wearing gloves, thin leather that sticks slightly to Will's hand with perspiration. "Subaru Sumeragi."

"Are you aware of what that man is, Mister Sumeragi?"

Sumeragi nods. Will exhales and collapses into his seat. After a moment, Sumeragi takes the chair across from him.

"You have a very special gift, Mister Graham," Sumeragi says. He speaks in a halting, proper manner that betrays his English as the product of textbooks rather than experience.

Will's eyes flicker to him, then away. "So do you, it seems. Will is fine."

"Then please, call me Subaru."

Will nods. His leg bounces beneath the small, pretty table. His eyes keep dancing from Subaru to where Hannibal and the suited man stand in growing darkness.

"What do you see, when you look at him?"

"Death," Will says. "Blood so dark it is black. It covers the earth beneath his feet. It eats the sky." Will takes a rattling breath. When he blinks Subaru back into focus, he finds the man's face pale enough to belong to a corpse.

"Shit. I'm sorry, I didn't mean," Will flounders.

Subaru shakes his head. "No. You are correct. He is that." Softly, he adds, "I know who you are, Will. Your companion, as well."

Will thinks of the knife sheathed at his side, thinks of how long it would take him to slide it into Subaru's neck. "What are you going to do about it?" he asks, quiet and even.

"Nothing." Subaru's face is still much too pale. "I know well what it is like, to want a monster by your side."

"We are both monsters," Will says. Subaru nods.

"There is no other way."

Will studies the man. His empathy tells him of past hurt, of lasting pain, of wounds so deep they should have broken Subaru's mind and left his body to wander the world as a hollow shell. The red lines hooked in Subaru's flesh all lead to the suited man, melt into the blackness of the man's body.

"Hannibal Lecter killed my friends. He fed me human flesh, broke my mind, left me for dead. I hated him with everything in me, imagined killing him a thousand ways. Even then, I - I loved him, more than I could bear." Subaru shudders and does not look up as Will speaks. "What did your monster do to you, Subaru?"

Subaru says nothing for long seconds. Then he slowly sheds his gloves and presses his hands against the table, palms down. Will stares at the twin pentagrams carved in Subaru's flesh and feels sick, feels the scar on his stomach throb.

"He tried to teach himself to feel by playing at a relationship with me," Subaru begins, words halting and soft. "Upon deciding he could not, he killed my twin sister, the only person I loved in the world beside him, and disappeared. I spent nine years looking for him. I thought that if I found him," Subaru swallows, "I thought he would kill me, too. It was all I wanted."

"You were no one without him," Will murmurs.

"He wanted me to _be_ him, twisted my mind until I thought I wanted it too," Subaru spits out. His right hand rises to his face. "He lost an eye for me, back when he was playing at being my friend. Nine years later, I gouged out one of my own to match him."

Perhaps noticing Will's confusion, he adds, "I wear colored contacts, sometimes. People stare less." Will nods, familiar with the self-hurt pain of that kind can lead a man to inflict.

"And now?" Will asks. "Does he still think your life is his to manipulate?" If so, Will might just let Hannibal hunt tonight.

Subaru looks up, a slight smile on his somber face. "We are on, ah, what do you call it - even ground now. He no longer sees me as prey."

"How did that happen?"

Subaru's smile grows into something dark and jagged. "I tore his chest open and wrapped my hand around his heart."

Will is certain there is not  a single metaphor in that sentence. "Yeah," he croaks. "That'd do it." He is suddenly a lot less concerned about Subaru. "What does he do, anyway? Your monster."

"It is difficult to explain. The simplest title, I believe, would be 'assassin.'" Subaru glances behind himself, toward the register. "Oh, that's not good."

Will follows his eyes, dread pooling in his stomach.

Hannibal and the dark-suited man appear deeply engrossed in a conversation. Of-fucking-course.

"We better go separate them before they start comparing recipes," Will mutters. Subaru throws him an alarmed look and hastily gets up. Will trails in his wake. He hears something about _breast bones_ and _soft tissue_ and hurries his steps, already scowling.

The dark-suited man turns his attention toward them as soon as they are within speaking distance. His eyes - mismatched; one milky white and blind, the other burnished gold - go to Subaru first. "Ah, Subaru-kun. Allow me to introduce you to Doctor Lecter." The eyes slide to Will, hollowly pleasant. "I see you have made a new friend, as well. Will Graham, I would presume?"

Will nods tightly and shoots Hannibal a meaningful look. The meaning being, _let's get the fuck out of here_.

Hannibal, the bastard, smiles politely and ignores him.

"Would you mind waiting, Will? I would like to speak with Mister Sakurazuka a bit longer."

Will bristles. Hannibal is going to regret dismissing him in about five seconds, when Will's fist collides with his kidneys.

Subaru's hand on Will's elbow grounds him. "Not like this," the man says, soft.

Hannibal and Mister Sakurazuka have already turned to each other, continuing their increasingly disturbing conversation. Apparently, Mister Sakurazuka specializes in killing his victims by punching out their hearts. With his bare hand.

"We have to do something," Will hisses. He is not going back on the run just because Hannibal wants to explore a new realm of murder. He likes Tokyo, damn it!

Subaru sighs. "I know what will divert Seishirou-san's attention. I must ask you to leave immediately, however. Is that acceptable?"

"Sure. Go for it," Will mutters, eyes on Hannibal's face. He is smiling his Ripper smile, he can tell.

"Alright. I apologize in advance."

Before Will can ask what Subaru is apologizing for, the hand on his elbow moves to grasp his shoulder and Subaru is suddenly a warm weight against Will's side. "Will-san," Subaru rumbles, voice low and smoky but more than loud enough for the two men standing beside them to hear, "Speaking with you has been such a pleasure. I look forward to our meeting next week."

Hannibal and Seishirou promptly fall silent.

Will clears his throat. "Yeah. Me - me too."

A wave of blood seems to rise from the floor, cold and dark.

"Subaru-kun," Sakurazuka says, suddenly looming at Subaru's side, "It is time to go."

Subaru looks up at him, face a perfect moue of confusion. "But we are only going to the zoo. I would like to know Will-san better."

Sakurazuka looks at Will like he would like to bleed him dry. Will takes this as his cue.

Hannibal, apparently, does as well.

"I am afraid we will be busy next week," he says, disconcertingly close. Will blinks up at him, not having heard Hannibal move. The man could be terribly quiet when he wanted. "Isn't that right, Will?" Hannibal's eyes are narrowed and not on Will at all.

Oh. _Oh_. Will grins and gently dislodges Subaru's arm.

"Yeah. Sorry, Subaru-kun," Will says. Sakurazuka's murderous aura grows to swallow the store. "Maybe some other time."

Will does not dare laugh until he and Hannibal are several blocks away, safe in the embrace of the jungle that is Tokyo. "Oh my God, did you see Sakurazuka's face? You know, it is kind of nice to meet people whose relationship is as fucked up as ours. I didn't really believe they existed."

"You certainly seemed to enjoy Mister Sumeragi's company," Hannibal says. Will throws him an incredulous look.

"Seriously?" Hannibal says nothing. Will groans. "You've got to be joking."

Hannibal retains his vaguely mulish look.

"You smell like him," he says finally. It comes out sounding highly offended.

Will takes a quick glance around, then pushes Hannibal bodily against the wall of a nearby building and presses hard between his legs. Hannibal lets out a burst of air that turns into a cut-off moan.

"When we get home," Will breathes against Hannibal's ear, "I'll let you fuck me until all there is on my skin is you."

Hannibal's hips grind up sharply. Will moans and bites at Hannibal's neck.

A burst of giggles nearby has them pulling apart, quick if reluctant. Will flushes when he notices a group of high school girls staring at them from across the street. "Let's go," he mutters and takes off for the station.

"You are a delightful contradiction, Will," Hannibal smiles, tracing Will's blush with hungry eyes. Will blushes harder.

"I'll show you delightful."

"I look forward to it."

Will pats his jeans for his metro card, and tries not to smile like a loon. Hannibal wraps his arms around Will once they make it into their train, pulling Will's body close to his and caging him in the safety of his arms.

Wrapped in his monster, Will lets out a sigh of relief and closes his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Aaand, no one gets any ice cream. :D


End file.
